The Ghost and the Dead Deb

this formerly sleepy little Rhode Island rest-stop of a town.

As I tried to push through the packed aisles to the back of the room, I nearly collided with another Buy the Book regular. Seymour Tarnish, avid collector of pulp magazines, was moving through the crowd, searching in vain for a seat, even as he surveyed the audience. By day, Seymour was our local mailman. On evenings and weekends, Seymour became a purveyor of frozen treats, dispensed from an ice cream truck he’d purchased a few years back with part of the money he’d won on Jeopardy!

“Hey, Pen, good crowd,” Seymour said, grinning. “If you told me the title of Angel Stark’s book was All My Pretty Young Half-Naked Friends, I might have gotten here sooner!”

As he spoke, Seymour scanned—wide-eyed—the sea of attractive, college-aged young women packed into Buy the Book.

“Not funny,” I said to the forty-year-old avowed bachelor who lived in his late mother’s house with a middle- aged male roommate and their huge collection of valuable pulp magazines.

Seymour noticed that I was wringing the life out my hands—one of the nervous habits I sometimes exhibited during author signings. My aunt Sadie has always maintained that nerves of steel were essential commodities in the always-volatile book business. Lacking same much of the time, I relied on my aunt, and co-owner, Sadie to keep an even keel.

Me? I did all the fretting—more than enough for both of us.

Seymour continued to relish the view. “Wow! I haven’t seen this many navels since I got a bag of oranges from my retired uncle in Miami.”

“Didn’t you volunteer to work store security tonight?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Your aunt gave me the night off. Says your author has a publicist that’s handling everything. But I’m here to help out if you need me.”

“Stick close,” I replied. “I don’t anticipate trouble, but this is the largest crowd we’ve drawn in quite a while —and the youngest.”

Seymour spied a space between two young women—twins—with curly, honey-gold hair. When he was gone, I looked up in time to hear the first question from the audience, posed by a heavy-set young woman who rose when she spoke, even though she was clearly nervous. Despite the warmth in the crowded room, the questioner wore a long-sleeved Brown University shirt.

“How has Bethany Banks’s murder affected you and your friends?” the coed asked shyly and quickly sat down again.

Angel nodded to acknowledge the questioner, then stepped close to the microphone to answer.

“In Comfortably Numb I spoke about emotional fallout—a term I coined—and how toxic such fallout can be. I wrote my first book to purge myself of toxic emotional fallout caused by my abusive home, my clinical depression, my promiscuous behavior, and my dependency on illegal drugs.”

This is still a tough pill to swallow, Jack complained. You’re telling me this dame wrote this dirt about her own life. Wrote it herself and wanted it published?

“Yes, Jack,” I silently informed him. “It’s quite common. These days it’s encouraged, often celebrated.”

Jack grunted his dismay.

“Bethany’s murder caused a ripple effect,” Angel continued. “Georgette LaPomeret took her own life, for example . . .”

There goes suspect number one.

Angel paused, gazing out at the audience. “Was it emotional fallout that drove her to suicide? Was it a kind of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder response to the murder?”

Brainert leaned toward me and whispered, “Or did she kill herself because of your book?”

I scowled. Not from Brainert’s comment but at the idea that the comment itself could be on the mark.

“Or,” continued Angel, “perhaps Georgette knew something about the killing—a secret that has gone to the grave with her. I wrote in my book that I believe Georgette was secretly in love with Bethany’s fiance, Donald Easterbrook. This, of course, is understandable, because Donald was Newport’s leading lothario and he’d secretly been sleeping with some of Bethany’s closest friends.”

Hmm, murmured Jack, if that’s true, could be Bethany caught fiance Donald cheating, flew into a rage, threatened or attacked him, and he killed her.

Gasps of surprise were heard, and the audience leaned forward, waiting to hear more. But instead of elaborating further, Angel pointed to another audience member with a hand raised.

This time a young man with longish brown hair and a fuzzy brown soul patch under his lower lip stood up and asked Angel the question that was probably on everybody’s mind. “Do you really know who killed Bethany Banks? Was it the dude they charged and later freed? Or was it one of her friends?”

Angel cautiously scanned the room like a scout in front of a wagon train. “Are there any lawyers present?” she asked at last. “If so, please leave.”

Her mock inquiry was greeted by laughter and applause. When the response died, Angel seriously addressed the man’s question.

“I have my suspicions, of course. And if you read my book, you’ll see what I think. I can only say that I am absolutely positive that the young man who was arrested was innocent, and that someone close to Bethany Banks is the real murderer—and that’s the person who framed the catering worker. You see, there wasn’t any physical evidence linking him to Bethany’s murder, only his belt around her neck, which the killer could have easily taken with gloved hands from the worker’s unlocked locker . . . which is why they couldn’t prosecute him.

“All the defense would have had to show was physical evidence that pointed to other people having been in that room with Bethany near the time of her murder, which there clearly were, and sufficient motive, which I amply reveal in my book, and they would have created a shadow of a doubt that would have easily meant an acquittal for that young man. Therefore, I believe, and most everyone who examined this case believes, that Bethany knew her killer, and that she left the ball to rendezvous with the person who murdered her.”

Of course she knew her killer, said Jack. That murder was a crime of passion. Without a doubt.

The young man with the soul patch called out a follow-up. “So why haven’t the police solved it?”

“Two names: O. J. Simpson and Martha Moxley. As in the Simpson case, the local cops botched their handling of the physical evidence. They pinned all their expectations on a confession from the catering worker, and allowed the wealthy crowd to flee without being questioned or searched.” Angel shrugged. “After that poor catering worker was released, the case just became another example of the very rich successfully retreating behind their attorneys and high hedgerows—as teen Martha Moxley’s killer had done for decades before Mark Fuhrman broke that in Murder in Greenwich.”

Next, a woman wearing tight jeans, a belly shirt, and a nose ring rose to speak.

“Ms. Stark, it seems that you condemn Bethany Banks for the life she led—for the men she slept with and the drugs she consumed. But as a feminist yourself, don’t you feel you should be defending Bethany Banks’s right to choose whatever lifestyle she wished to live, regardless of the moral and ethical strictures placed on women by the double-standards of a sexist society?”

Angel Stark listened to the question without even a nod. When the girl sat back down, Angel wet her lips and spoke. “I think you all know the kind of lifestyle choices I’ve made, since I’ve written about them ad nauseum —”

Sly laughter from the audience.

“My problem with Bethany was that she hid her true self behind a mask, as if she were ashamed of the men, the drugs, the partying. No one should ever sin and then feel bad about it. Either don’t sin, or don’t feel bad. Anyway, I’ve always believed that guilt is something best left to working-class churchgoers, nuns, and old ladies. Of course, I realize this is a cutting-edge, postmodern philosophy that flies over the heads of a population stuck in the past.”

Sheesh. This dame really thinks she’s class on a stick, but I’ve got news for her. There’s nothing new about her attitude. In my day, she’s what was called a “debutramp.”

“A what?” I was trying my best to ignore Jack and listen to the author I was hosting, but that last comment got me. “Come again?”